Triage and diagnosis of patients can be problematic due to a lack of knowledge about the condition or status of the patient. Current physiological monitoring is confined to limited sets of conventional non-invasive measurements of physiological signs of the patient throughout the pre-hospital care phase such as, for example, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation. Due to this limited information, treatment options are not based on empirical data, but rather typically rely on the experience of the patient care provider and the limited measurements of physiological signs available from the patients. Consequently, critical decisions may be made based on incomplete knowledge of the patient condition.
Furthermore, when dealing with multiple patients in a pre-hospital or hospital situation, the lack of accurate data becomes problematic when decisions on patient care prioritization and treatment options must be made for several patients in a short time frame. Thus, many patient care decisions may be incorrect and/or delayed.
Patient care decisions are further complicated by human compensatory mechanisms that result in adequate blood flow to the patient's core and head that can mask the patients true condition, as the conventional physiological signs that are used to determine the status of the patient do not take into account, and may even disregard, those compensatory mechanisms.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an improved system and method for making patient care decisions.